


Out of Time

by Auchen



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1438708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auchen/pseuds/Auchen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki works thankless hours at a time travel agency that allows for wealthy members of the public to take vacations into the past. One night he is sorting through his closet and finds a pair of boots that he can never seem to bring himself to get rid of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by this Doctor Who quote: "People fall out of the world sometimes, but they always leave traces. Little things we can’t quite account for. Faces in photographs, luggage, half-eaten meals. Rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back."

There they were again. Those ridiculous red boots that always winked at him from the back of the closet when he deigned to clean it. It always went the same way, tossing out shirts in the dark hours of the morning—when else did he have time?— only to see the boots peeking out between dented old shoe boxes. 

Every time he reached over to take them out, something twisted inside him, whispering no. Loki knew that he should be able to get rid of them, for he didn’t even know where they came from. They certainly weren’t from his younger years, they were the wrong size, and besides, red was such an ugly color.

But something seemed wrong about getting rid of them, so there they sat. It wasn’t as if Loki often thought of them, not when he worked into the small hours at the Agency, eyes burning as he pushed through pages of equations, trying to figure out the correct combination that would send their clients the exact date they wanted. Whether that year was 1807, or 1100, it couldn’t be a day later or earlier.

He disdained most of their clients, with their vacant eyes and gaping mouths as they took in the wonder of a Cretaceous forest, or their idiotic grins when they surveyed the rolling hills in Regency England. They didn’t know the finer workings of the negative energy that made their time travel vacations possible. They did not know the hours he poured into trying to claw his way up the ladder of the company, nor how he submitted articles to scientific journals, hoping that his colleagues would see his contributions to the time travel community.

Because of those tourists, he had returned tonight to his apartment in the pelting rain, billboard ads assaulting his ears. Because of them, he was sitting in front of his closet as his subconscious stewed on an equation while he tossed an old pair of jeans at the foot of his bed.

And because of them, he was staring at the boots once again, the tips of his fingers nearly brushing them. Loki scowled. He would get rid of them this time. What was this sentiment he felt so long for two objects he didn’t even know the origin of?

But as his fingers touched the sides of the boots, images started to flood his mind. Dark hair and eyes, a thin nose, and red lips. A woman’s face smiling, reaching for him, but soon melting into the image of the same woman, reaching again, but this time her fingers curled with desperation, hands shaking, face pale. A brass time bracelet that all the guides and tourists wore was clamped around her wrist, humming and sparking blue light. 

Her mouth formed the letters of his name, but he heard no sound. More sparks came, and the vision ended all at once, blackness leaking into his eye sight like ink. 

Loki jerked his hand away from the boots as if burned, eyes flicking from his hand to boots wavering at the edge of his eyes. It was nothing. Things like this had happened before when he had been in contact with items that had not been cleaned free of residual energy from worm holes. Sometimes the energy carried the memory of events that had happened along a time line.

He let out a quiet breath as the rain pelted the windows. The closet doors creaked as he shut them.

He would get rid of the boots tomorrow.


End file.
